


The Last Hurrah

by MageKing17



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gardens, Danzou suffers the brunt of it, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Homecoming, Shikako grieves differently than most people, you can probably read it as Shikako/Shisui but if you do it's heartbreaking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-11-26 10:16:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18179309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MageKing17/pseuds/MageKing17
Summary: After finally returning to her home universe, Shikako decides to pay her final respects to a friend she never met.





	The Last Hurrah

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [the dark fire will not avail you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14871546) by [wafflelate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/pseuds/wafflelate). 



> This was originally posted on the Dreaming of Sunshine forums. If you haven't read Dreaming of Sunshine through at least the Land of Hot Springs Arc, this probably won't make any sense (not sure if anything major gets spoiled here, but there's probably something). For those familiar with the Gardens... multiverse(?), this is post-Split and Gardener!Shikako has just arrived in her home universe. For those who don't know what those terms mean, all you really need to know is that the Land of Hot Springs incident ended differently, with Shikako winding up stuck in a series of alternate universes, and it took _quite_ a while for her to get home.
> 
> I was gonna wait to post this until Shisui showed up in Many Gardens, but decided to stop procrastinating and just throw this up.

Shikako let out a shaky breath and finally allowed herself to admit the truth: she was _finally home_.

She'd really confirmed that two hours ago, but being back in Konoha made it true in a way that simply knowing she was in the correct universe did not. There was Tsunade, still in her office despite the late hour; there was Sasuke, asleep in his apartment. There was Kakashi, in a training field with Gai, no doubt engaging in a late-night challenge. There was her father, catching a nap at his desk. There was her mom and her baby brother, together in the kitchen for whatever reason.

Their chakra wasn't just "familiar", it was _family_ ; it was _home_.

Shikako wiped the tears she couldn't help but cry away and reflected on who she _couldn't_ sense: Naruto, still training with Jiraiya. Shikamaru; he must be away on a mission right now. Since she couldn't sense Ino, Chouji, or Asuma either, it seemed the most likely explanation. Aoba; she'd never be able to sense him, or even an alternate version of him, again.

Shisui. God, she'd never even _met_ Shisui before her unplanned inter-universal field trip, and yet the thought that she'd never talk to that bright, cheerful, fluffy-haired Uchiha ever again was almost physically painful. She briefly wondered if it would be too weird to say goodbye when she'd never met this universe's version, and then realized that she didn't particularly care how weird it would be, and found herself heading for the Uchiha district without a conscious decision to do so.

He'd understand if she stopped by his old home to say farewell, right? Right.

* * *

Sasuke found himself awake and alert without any apparent cause.

His ANBU tattoo wasn't trying to get his attention. A quick check of his apartment showed nothing out of the ordinary; his Sharingan revealed no unusual chakra signatures, and nothing had been moved.

At a loss, and still feeling unaccountably agitated, he went for a quick walk... and saw a flash of movement heading towards the Uchiha district.

Surprised, but cautious, he immediately gave chase. Whoever it was, they weren't ANBU, and they weren't advertising their presence, but they weren't trying very hard to hide it, either; the situation added up to imply "Konoha ninja", but he knew that implications could be the most effective lies, and _nobody_ went into the Uchiha district.

Whoever he was chasing, he was unable to get a good look at them before they slipped through a doorway that he vaguely recognized... the home of one of his older cousins?

_Shit,_ he realized. _Shisui; he was close to Itachi, before he died._

Feeling far more nervous about who might be quite so blasé about coming to this particular building, Sasuke pulled on all of his ANBU stealth training to follow... and stopped when he heard a familiar voice.

"Sorry to drop in on you like this," Shikako's quiet voice floated out to him, "but I wasn't sure if you had a grave marker or something, since... well."

Sasuke stepped through the door into Shisui's bedroom, still basically untouched since his death even before the massacre, and set eyes on quite possibly the last person he'd expected to find sneaking into the Uchiha district to... pay their respects to the dead? How did she even know who Shisui was?

"Hello, Sasuke," Shikako said quietly, not even turning away from what appeared to be a team portrait. "I hope you don't mind too much, but... I just had to say goodbye before I could try to fit back into my old life."

Sasuke wasn't quite sure what to say to that. "Kinda expected you to report into the Hokage first, if not see your family."

"There's something I need to do first," she said with a familiar, determined expression. Shikako then directed her words at the portrait again. "Shisui... I know we didn't meet in this universe, but I hope we would've gotten along just as well, if we had." She reached out to touch the frame, her hand shaking, but her voice remained steady. "I'll do my best to take care of everything for you; you'll be able to rest easy."

Then she turned back to Sasuke and immediately hugged him, and Sasuke (eyes wide as he tried not to panic) politely pretended not to notice the way she was crying. Shikako, in turn, pretended not to notice his own tears.

"Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to be gone this long."

"You've been gone longer than a month before," he replied, trying to sound teasing and yet coming across more as scolding.

Shikako blinked in surprise. "It's been... more than a month for me," she said after a moment.

"So," Sasuke said, with forced nonchalance. "'This universe'?"

"I've been through quite a few on my way home," she confirmed.

"That sounds..." he searched briefly for the right word. "Complicated."

Shikako let out a bark of laughter. "It certainly was that."

"Do you... want to talk about it?"

She hesitated, then dropped her gaze to the floor. "I don't... think talking with you would be a good idea, right now. I—you—there's so many—"

_Does it have something to do with you apparently being friends with Uchiha from alternate universes?_ Sasuke wondered, but out loud he said, "Okay. Should we go see the Hokage, then?"

Shikako walked over to the window. "I think it would be best if I took care of one last errand first."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. _What is more important than letting Tsunade know you're back?_ "How do I know you're not compromised right now?"

She winced, then looked back at him... but not into his eyes. "Emotionally... I am _definitely_ compromised right now," she replied apologetically, and then vanished among the shadows on the floor.

Sasuke swore and booked it towards the tower.

* * *

Tsunade sighed at the sudden arrival. "ANBU Hawk, report."

"Shikako's back," he said without preamble, "and I think she's about to do something stupid."

Tsunade blinked, the only external indicator of her surprise. "Details."

"I found her in Shisui Uchiha's bedroom talking to what appeared to be his team portrait; apparently, she was gone for more than a month, travelled through multiple universes, and met at least one alternate version of him. She said 'I'll do my best to take care of everything for you; you'll be able to rest easy' and that she had 'one last errand' to take care of before reporting in. She also said that she was definitely emotionally compromised."

Tsunade's frown grew deeper the longer Sasuke talked; finally, she said, "Do you have any idea where she might have gone?"

* * *

A soft voice whispered, "Hello, Danzo."

Danzo Shimura snapped awake, and was surprised to find himself unable to move. He reflexively attempted to use his Sharingan, only to find it wasn't responding.

"Did you know," a calm voice he quickly identified as that of the troublesome Nara girl spoke from the darkness surrounding him that his senses seemed unable to penetrate, "you used the exact same set of seals in no fewer than seven alternate universes? They're a lot easier to counter when you're intimately familiar with them."

Her face materialized out of the shadows, seemingly floating in the air above him. "You have quite a few things that don't belong to you."

And then Danzo couldn't help but cry out in pain as his stolen eye was wrenched from its socket.

* * *

Sasuke and Tsunade both rushed to the window at the sound of the explosion.

"Damn," Sasuke muttered, and Tsunade couldn't help but agree.

"That," she said, eyes narrowed in thought, "was Elder Shimura's home."

Sasuke sighed. "Something tells me that this is going to be a long night."

* * *

Kakashi and Gai both turned simultaneously to face the explosion. Neither of them said a word before they had both used shunshin to arrive in front of the smoking ruin that had been Elder Shimura's home. Scant moments later, Tsunade arrived with a small contingent of ANBU; Kakashi politely pretended not to notice that the one standing next to her was Sasuke.

"Hawk," she barked out, "secure the perimeter; make sure nobody gets in or out."

Sasuke quickly saluted and disappeared with a handful of the other ANBU. Tsunade kept delivering orders. "Hatake, with me; let's find out what happened in there."

* * *

"Cat," Kakashi said flatly a few minutes later, "look at this."

Tenzou picked his way across the debris and stopped in shock. "That is... unexpected."

_"Unexpected" doesn't even begin to cover it,_ Kakashi thought as he stared down at the seal-and-Sharingan-covered corpse of Danzo Shimura. "Some sort of suicide seal on the chest, which appears to have a suppression seal layered on top of it. More seals I don't recognize all over that arm, and one covering the empty eye socket..."

He didn't mention the gaping hole in Danzo's chest; it was fairly self-evident, after all.

"Who could've done this?" Tenzou asked, sounding shaken.

"Hokage-sama," Kakashi called out, "I think Hawk should probably see this as well."

Tsunade came over and pursed her lips as she took in the corpse. "This is gonna be a clusterfuck and a half," she muttered.

"How was his corpse left intact amidst all this rubble?" Kakashi wondered, looking around; there didn't seem to be any reason for it to be as pristine as it was, given the surrounding devastation.

_If I had to guess,_ Tsunade thought wryly, _Shikako probably used a barrier seal to protect it so we could find it._

"Hatake," she said before he found any clues that pointed towards that conclusion, "get some rest."

Kakashi's head whipped around so he could stare at her. "Hokage-sama?"

"I'm going to need you for a mission in the morning," Tsunade said, not taking her eyes off the elder's corpse. "It might be a long one."

Tenzou almost looked like he wanted to argue, but he said nothing. Tsunade gave a mental shrug and added. "Cat can accompany you."

Kakashi sighed. "Hai, Hokage-sama," he acknowledged unenthusiastically before taking off.

* * *

After the... interesting events of the night, Kakashi found himself heading towards the memorial stone; he wasn't quite sure _what_ he wanted to say, but definitely felt Obito ought to be told _something_ , given what—

Kakashi froze as he realized there was someone standing in front of the memorial stone... someone he recognized, even. He couldn't help but to pull up his headband and confirm that it wasn't a genjutsu, because he definitely wasn't expecting to see his missing student standing in front of the memorial stone talking to... Shisui Uchiha?

"Sorry for any potential confusion from the location, Shisui," Shikako was saying. "It just seemed more appropriate to do this here."

She turned and smiled sadly at Kakashi before he could say anything. "Hello, Kakashi-sensei; reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated," she said (again, because it was still a great line).

He blinked and said, somewhat numbly, "We didn't think you were dead."

She shrugged and turned back to the stone. "It's a good line anyway; right, Shisui?"

Kakashi struggled for a moment with which question he should ask first ( _Where have you been? How did you get back?_ When _did you get back? How do you know Shisui? Did you have something to do with that explosion?_ ) before finally settling on, "You know his name isn't on there, right?"

Shikako chuckled. "Check again," she said.

Kakashi did a double-take and saw freshly-carved characters spelling out "Shisui Uchiha". He gave her an eye-smile. "Mah, I don't think you're supposed to unilaterally decide names should be on there and carve them yourself."

"I don't care," she replied, suddenly intense. "It _should_ be on there, and they can remove it over my dead body."

He blinked in surprise at the vehement response, and then glanced down at her hand, which was clenched into a fist and seemed to be dripping blood. "If I asked you whether you're holding the eye that was pulled out of Elder Shimura's head, would the answer be yes?"

She smirked and opened her palm, which was empty but for blood stains. "Nope."

Kakashi's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Would the answer have been yes before I got here?"

The sad smile she'd given him when he'd first walked up reappeared. "I think you can guess at this point, ne? Hello again, Sasuke."

"'One last errand', huh?" Kakashi turned to see Sasuke standing at the tree line, no longer wearing his Hawk mask.

Shikako shrugged. "I owed Shisui at least that much; he can rest easy now that his eye won't be used by that man any longer."

"That..." Kakashi blinked several times as he processed that. "That was _Shisui's_ eye?"

"I can't believe," Sasuke said with a groan, "that you _killed an elder_ because you made friends in _another universe_."

Shikako coughed. " _Multiple_ other universes, actually." She turned to Kakashi. "Speaking of which, alternate versions of Rin, Obito, and Minato say 'hello'."

Kakashi blinked at the letters she pulled out of nowhere, but before he could respond she kept going. "Also four alternate versions of yourself," she pulled out more letters, "and an alternate version of Sakumo."

With that, she pulled out a small box with the Hatake clan symbol on top, and put the entire pile of stuff on the ground next to her. "I should probably report back in, now; if Tsunade kills me, open this." She dropped another letter, this one covered with seals, onto the ground seperate from the other pile. "Let's go, Sasuke."

Kakashi blinked at the suddenly empty clearing and wondered if his life had ever made sense.

**Author's Note:**

> This was only intended as a one-shot, but maybe a follow-up with Tsunade's debriefing could be fun.
> 
> The reactions to this snippet in the forum can be found [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/180237/137948546/593/#171094450).


End file.
